High Representative Catherine Ashton appeared to gain a little ground at the ‘Gymnich’ meeting of EU foreign ministers in Cordoba, on 5 March, in her gruelling and very public battle for support for her plans for the European External Action Service (EEAS).

Attempting to make a democratic virtue of the discord between the institutions and between the member states, as each negotiates their stake in the service, Ashton acknowledged that “you’ll see differences” at this stage, but maintained that “you’ll see the synthesis of those differences” as the process advances. “It’s brand new, it means we have to work out how that works,” she added.

A number of the foreign ministers contributed the sense of progress by coming out publicly to back Ashton personally, including British Foreign Secretary David Miliband who, jointly with his Swedish counterpart, Carl Bildt, had two days previously sent his former Labour Party colleague a letter with bullet points of advice on improving her plan (see Europolitics3932).

“I don’t support them,” Miliband said of the wide-ranging criticisms aimed at Ashton and maintained that there was “certainly not a battle between the Commission and the member states,” despite saying in the letter that he was particularly concerned that current “struggles” could derail the setting up of the EEAS.

Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn was more enthusiastic, declaring “Ashton is a very energetic person, tenacious and strong and we are all going to support her because that’s the way to support our policy”. Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb was equally positive, reporting that “Ashton got 100% support” from her colleagues in Cordoba. Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister, added that he felt the deluge of complaints against Ashton were “largely ill-placed”.

The broad show of solidarity may well be refreshing to the much-criticised high representative, but without backing any specifics of her EEAS plans, they leave considerable room for the conflict to continue behind the scenes.

Her next test will come on 10 March, when she appears in the plenary session of the European Parliament to present her plans for the EEAS. In Strasbourg, her challenge will be to convince MEPs that they are valued enough to avoid a situation where Parliament uses its powers of co-decision on financing and staffing regulations on the EEAS to effectively block, or delay, the entire package.

“Ashton is a very energetic person, tenacious and strong,” said Jean Asselborn